Best-selling Los Angeles novelist Marie Lu has come a long way from working as the art director of a video game company, but she’s still a master at weaving the interplay between the narrative and the action - and in the case of Stars and Smoke, it is a thrilling spy game.

The #1 New York Times best-selling author’s new book follow​​s two powerful characters - superstar musician Winter Young and up-and-coming CIA officer Sydney Cossette. Their worlds collide when a crime boss hires Winter to perform a private concert for his daughter’s birthday and he is recruited as a spy. Sydney acts as Winter's bodyguard while tasked with infiltrating the gangsters’ inner circle.

Don’t expect sassy Sydney to fall into line with the music groupies vying for Winter’s attention, however. The ice queen is part of an elite covert ops group, a woman equally comfortable learning new languages or breaking hearts. It seems Winter may have met his match on this bumpy mission. Reviewers describe the novel as Mission: Impossible meets The Hating Game, although there just might be a romantic spark when Sydney takes Winter to the mats for combat training.

"She fell and a blink later, she found herself on her back,” Lu writes. “Winter's knee pressed lightly against her chest, the knife held to her throat. For a moment, she just stared at him, heart pounding, all sarcasm forgotten… ” 

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Marie Lu’s writing secrets‍

Like her character Sydney, Marie Lu exudes poise, confidence, and has a lot of cool stuff under her belt. The author’s previous work includes Batman: Nightwalker in the DC Icons series, a superhero coming-of-age story. Lu has also taken Young Adult readers on an action-packed adventure with her Skyhunter, Young Elites, and dystopian hit Legend series.

Born in 1984, Lu graduated from the University of Southern California in 2006 and still lives in Los Angeles. Stars and Smoke was born out of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, Lu was distraught about what was happening in the world. She needed an escape and read an article about celebrities who had also worked as spies. Lu decided that would be her escape. She’d create a novel about a pop-star-turned-espionage agent.

Because of her background working in the video gaming industry, Marie Lu developed a unique writing style that begins with Lu sketching her characters before outlining them in writing.

"I'm a very visual thinker so I find that I have trouble understanding my characters and understanding the new story I'm writing unless I can see them on paper,” Wu told the Tamron Hall Show. “I used to work in video games as an artist and a designer so I tend to visualize them in my head first."

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Marie Lu: a writer's life

Lu generally doesn’t know where her books are headed when she starts writing. There are a few ideas and points she’d like to hit along the way, but doesn’t know how to get there: “I always go off into the weeds,” she said. The book twists and turns develop naturally when Lu finally arrives on the page she’s writing.

Lu likes to get a feel for her settings and travel is all part of the adventure. Part of Stars and Smoke’s narrative centers around London so Lu traveled to England for research. Lu initially set the scene at the V&A -the Victoria and Albert Museum - by relying on online research but was relieved she’d checked in person.

“I actually went to the museum, and I was like, ‘Nope, gotta rewrite this entire chapter.’ So I remember wandering around the museum, staring at where the security cameras are. And I'm sure all the security guys were looking at me like, ‘Something's up with that girl.’”

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Marie Lu: pulling together the pieces for Stars and Smoke‍

Lu also visited a lot of post-lockdown music concerts to get a sense of Winter’s personality - a character she describes as a vulnerable, uneasy, and bisexual celebrity. She also wanted to understand the type of concert Winter would perform. “I think BTS put on some of the best concerts I've ever seen,” Lu told Boston Radio. “Harry Styles, I think, is another one who would fit Winter's persona very well.”

The character of Sydney, Winter’s foil, is more cerebral and introverted. Sydney’s definitely got walls around her. “I've always had a really soft spot for prickly girls,” Marie Lu admits. Sydney “doesn't care for the spotlight. She's a spy - she really doesn't want it. She has no one to speak of in her life that she feels an attachment to. So she has no need to feel like she has to please anyone.”

Fans will be happy to know that there’s more to come. Lu is working on a second book about the pair but this time Sydney and Winter are on separate missions. There will “definitely be more romantic tension between the two of them, as well as some of the other characters,” Lu promises. “I very much intend to put them into ever-increasing stakes, especially with each other.”